… that thing where you’re doing dishes and you smell a faint sour whiff of something somewhere and you sniff the air around you and you sniff over the trashcan and you sniff the actual dishes and let’s admit it you sniff in the vicinity of your armpit and you can’t find it but you finally sniff the sponge in your hands and you accidentally tap the very tip of your nose with the wet edge of the sponge and you recoil less at the unexpected warmth and damp than at the smell because WHOA THAT’S IT so you put all the presumed-clean dishes back in the sink to rewash them and you fill a small dish with bleach solution to soak and de-smellify the sponge and heck the dish brush too while you’re at it and then you wash all possibility of sponge-smell and bleach traces off your hands and then you do it again just to be sure and then you go out for a walk while you wait for the bleachy solution to clean up that sponge and as you’re rounding the corner you realize that you scrubbed and bleached everything in the sink and washed your hands but you never washed the tip of your nose.

Because we have so very much stuff and because so much of it goes sadly to waste, I pledged to use, give away, or dispose of at least one household object for every day in September. I covered the first baker’s dozen here, and here are the rest. Continue reading →

This small apartment is crammed full of stuff — most of it mine, and much of it so very crammed in that we can’t get at it.

I keep paring down. I dropped off several big boxes of clothing at Goodwill and still I can’t see the back of the closet. I gave away a food processor and I still have two left. If a guest admires a [book/scarf/toy/kitchen tool], sometimes I give it to them on the spot and thank them for taking it.

The place is still littered with toys, games, DVDs still in their cellophane, shoes I’m waiting to break in, shoes I stopped wearing, beautiful trinkets that we were given and don’t need, winter coats that are too fancy, winter coats that aren’t fancy enough, books jammed into boxes where we can’t read them, favorite dresses hanging in the back of a deep closet where I forget them, luxurious bath oils turning sour and stale on the shelf, down comforters balled up under the bed getting musty.

My mindset of scarcity creates so much sad waste. I’m saving those bath oils, that velvet dress, those perfect shoes, that lovely down throw, the most delicate wineglasses, the expensive bottle of spirits, the crisp linen dish towels handed down from my grandmother, the folded swath of uncut lilac fabric. I’m saving them for LATER. I’m saving them for BEST.

But if BEST never comes, if it is never LATER, then those luscious goods, those indulgences, those luxuries… they sit and molder on the shelf.

I’ve made a resolution for September: each week, I pledge to use or dispose of at least seven unused, underused, or forgotten objects: one every day, or a week’s worth all at once, however it works out. No matter how much I give (or throw) away, the count resets each Sunday: if I toss out or rehome 30 items on September 1st, I still have seven to go the next week.

Expect the updates to be excruciatingly dull for everyone but me. After all, I’m the one unearthing those velvet dresses, drinking the expensive spirits, giving away toys, and opening up space in my cramped home.

Though September hasn’t started, I have: some construction in our building forced us to clear out a long-ignored closet. I threw out a dozen spoiled, soiled, spilled, or otherwise unsuitable objects.

I came down with a cold just before New Year’s Eve, and it persisted until, ooooh, yesterday. That’s more than two weeks of snotty, sniveling sickness — and two weeks of experiencing The Fella’s shining example of unconditional love. Some simple acts of love:

– insisting I sleep cozied down in the bed with him instead of confining my coughing, hacking, restless, contagious self to the hard sofa.

– gazing at my slack, shambling frame as I change from a sweaty, baggy pair of gray PJs to a clean, baggy pair of gray PJs and saying (in a voice ringing with sincerity), “You’re so pretty!”

– driving to the restaurant whose name and address I don’t know to order the soup I can’t pronounce.

A few small pleasures on this gray rainy day:
– new boots, bought in the last days of spring and packed away for a rainy day;
– sugar cubes, bought for champagne cocktails but distinctly pleasant to watch them melting in a cup of tea;
– a whole basket of fresh tomatoes, bursting with juice and scent, too gorgeous to cook or gussy up;
– a brand new sketchpad and an excellent pen;
– a few minutes stolen with The Fella, bundled up in bed with blankets and books.

For the moment, I’m directing my writing energy elsewhere, but I’ll continue to check in with little things — and little things can be good.